etadd_46(4) - Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities

that all students are required to achieve, one
of which focuses explicitly on the ability to
measure attributes of objects such as time and
money applications, which is commonly problematic
for a large number of students with
mild intellectual disabilities. Fortunately, a
growing research-base of new and innovative
interventions, like the TouchMath© program,
has been developing in the literature and has
shown some promising results to be effective
in increasing students with and without disabilities
mathematics performance.
The TouchMath© program (Bullock et al.,
1989), a multi-sensory “dot-notation” system,
previously employed by Kramer and Krug
(1973) was used to teach mathematics skills to
students with disabilities. The TouchMath©
program uses “dot-notations” often referred
to as “touch-points” either with one dot, for
numbers 1 to 5, or a dot-notation with a circle
around them, to indicate two or double touchpoints
to assist students with and without disabilities
with basic counting and computation
skills. The TouchMath© program using the
touch-points strategy, has been shown in previous
research to be effective for students with
mathematical disabilities in basic mathematics
instruction (e.g., adding single, double-digit
mathematics problems with and without regrouping)
at the elementary level for students
with specific learning disabilities and moderate
intellectual disabilities (Scott, 1993; Simon
& Hanrahan, 2004), autism spectrum disorders
(Cihak & Foust, 2008), and more recently,
at the middle school level including
students with autism spectrum disorders and
moderate intellectual disabilities (Fletcher,
Boon, & Cihak, 2010). However, no studies to
date have attempted to explore the effectiveness
of the TouchMath© program, using
money computation skills, with students with
mild intellectual disabilities in a high school
classroom setting.
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to
examine the effects of the TouchMath© program
on the acquisition of subtracting 3-digit
money computational problems with regrouping
for three students with mild intellectual
disabilities in a high school special education
self-contained classroom. Prior research on
the efficacy of the TouchMath© program has
focused only on students with specific learning
disabilities, moderate intellectual disabilities,
and autism spectrum disorders at the elementary
and middle school grade levels, and has
not addressed the benefits of such a strategy
for students with mild intellectual disabilities
at the high school level. Although previous
studies have investigated the use of the touchpoints
strategy to teach basic addition using
single and double-digit mathematics problems;
no studies have explored the benefits of
the touch-points strategy on money applications.
Research Questions
Thus, the two main research questions posed
were: (a) What are the effects of the Touch-
Math© program on the mathematics performance
of solving subtraction 3-digit money
computational problems with regrouping for
students with mild intellectual disabilities at
the high school grade level? And (b) What are
the students, teachers, and parents perceptions
of the TouchMath© program to improving
students with mild intellectual disabilities
mathematics performance?
Method
Participants
Three students with mild intellectual disabilities,
two of which had a dual-diagnosis of autism
as well, from the same special education
high school self-contained classroom participated
in the study. The students’ ages ranged
from 14 to 16 years-old, with a mean of 14.75
and intellectual quotients (IQ) scores varied
from 61 to 64, with a mean of 63. All of the
students were classified with a disability based
on the county, state, and federal criteria,
which indicated having below average intellectual
ability, deficits in adaptive behavior
scores, which both negatively affected their
academic performance. Demographic and educational
information is depicted in Table 1.
All of the students received special education
services since entering high school where they
were in a self-contained special education
classroom setting for three block periods a day
and participated in only one general education
course elective. The students were taught
all of their academic subjects including mathematics
instruction in the same self-contained
Touchmath© and Money Skills / 545